Ea rene video game lover entertainment geek

@Humankillerz, I wish we could see exactly how you envisioned the streamlining of the action bubble choices!

@BlackjackWidow, sorry your Frog Filing System didn't work!  I've tried this with fish and produce (not to mention other items) with no luck.  That is why I want a system with tabs for each category! 

@SheriGR, to my knowledge the only real use for breeding frogs is to further your collection faster. 

I don't know about the dog poops being fertilizer because usually my Sims with dogs are so busy interacting with them that they don't have time to garden much.  I'm sure it is the same in my game, but I can test it out anyway just to make sure.  My guess is that the developers wanted to promote the real-life necessity of cleaning up your dog's poop (especially in public places), and was just trying to make a creative and funny text description explaining why the poop was able to be picked up! 

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Ryan Tabatabai (2nd from left) is the founder of No Hope Studios and is working on the video game, “Quandary: Escape This HELLHOLE” with fellow team members (left to right) Alexander Paul Herrera, James Curtis Vaughn Jr., and John Ledesma.

Robin Jerstad /Contributor

Ryan Tabatabai would love to see his name light up the credits of the next “Fortnite,” the latest video game phenomenon. For now, the closest he may get to self-made stardom is a first-person horror game called “Quandary: Escape This HELLHOLE.”

If he ever finishes it.

It’s been around a year since the Art Institute of San Antonio student founded the ironically named No Hope Studios. Since then, the 23-year-old digital artist has spent thousands of dollars and countless hours making “Quandary” a reality. Lately, that quest has played out in a tiny room at his aunt and uncle’s house, amid several monitors hooked up to his personal computer and a handful of equally passionate and unpaid programmers and designers.

To borrow gamer’s parlance, Tabatabai and the No Hope crew just keep on grinding.

“Not a lot of people know this, but game development has a lot of hurdles,” Tabatabai said. “You have to put in a lot of your time and dedication into it. It truly is a passion.”

San Antonio is home to a small community of independent video-game developers like Tabatabai, all hungry for a slice of that multibillion-dollar video-game pie. They know the odds of making the next breakout game are long. But like other struggling artists — and game designers do consider what they do art — some will level up to make an actual living out of their digital diversions, while others will have to settle for creating something new for fun instead of profit.

Of course, Tabatabai and the rest of the No Hope crew would like to make names for themselves in the gaming industry. But they also crave that rewarding feeling that comes with adding a new work of playable art to an ever-growing and ever-competitive exhibit space.

Still, it would be nice if some money followed that bliss.

“To see your idea come to life and people enjoy it, that would be the best payout,” said Alexander Paul Herrera, a No Hope designer and Art Institute graduate who works full time at a bakery. “Also, getting paid.”

Last year alone, Americans spent nearly $30 billion on video-game content, according to the Entertainment Software Association and NPD Group. It’s no wonder then, as the association figures, that there’s some sort of video-game company presence in all 50 states, with more than 2,700 companies across the nation.

The larger companies tend to proliferate along the East and West coasts. Another fertile tech ground is Austin, home to dozens of small-scale game developers, as well as offices for big-name publishers such as Blizzard Entertainment and Electronic Arts.

In comparison, San Antonio has about a dozen video-game studios, though many more individuals around town make games on their own.

San Antonio’s game development community has at least one major player in its backyard: the annual gaming festival PAX South.

Since its 2015 debut at the Convention Center, PAX South has championed indie game makers near and far with a fan-driven expo where they can display their wares. In addition to exhibit space, PAX South also hosts a special showcase of games by smaller developers.

But even the overseer of those expos sees the video game as the real victory and its payouts as a bonus.

Ryan Hartman, director of events for Penny Arcade, which runs the PAX events, said in a statement that it’s rare for an indie game to become a smash hit that makes its developer wealthy. Rather, a lot of indie developers choose their career for the love of the craft.

“Indie development can be a difficult road, but in a lot of ways it’s one of the purest iterations of gaming culture,” Hartman said. “We have a lot of indies at our PAX shows, including PAX South, and we love being able to give them a platform to elevate their profile and put them in the same playing field as large entities like Capcom and Nintendo.”

Rick Stemm, a game designer in San Antonio who co-founded the Alamo City chapter of the International Game Developers Association, echoed that sentiment.

“Making it is incredibly difficult,” said Stemm, who also teaches game design to middle and high school students in the SAY Sí after-school arts program. “Having the next ‘Fortnite’ is fantastic, and having your name attached to a big game is great. But that’s not always what ‘making it’ means. Sometimes it just means, ‘I made a game.’”

Stemm created the free role-playing game “Heroes Must Die,” which has more than 30,000 downloads. He said financial success for any game developer depends on more than a good game. It also requires a ton of creative talent, plus plenty of marketing dollars to make the product stand out from the hundreds of games released every month. And don’t forget what Stemm calls a frustrating amount of luck.

“That’s one of the reasons I keep promoting community,” he said. “What’s a good life to you, and how does your art factor into that?”

Of course, that also means factoring for when the game doesn’t level up the banking account. Angelus Delacroix, founder of Hebi Studios in San Antonio, said many owners of indie-game companies in town work full-time jobs and live at home with their parents.

“It’s an art form,” said Delacroix, who works full time as a graphic designer. “So we’re all still starving artists, essentially.”

Hebi is one of the more successful indie-game studios in San Antonio. Its breakout title, “RageBall,” a $9.99 computer and Wii U game often referred to as “Pong” on steroids, has racked up about 12,000 downloads since its November debut, regaling players as far away as China, Russia and Germany.

Those are decent stats for any indie game company, Delacroix said. But they’re just a hiccup compared to major publishers such as Epic Games, the company behind the mega-popular “Fortnite.”

In a June blog entry, Epic announced “Fortnite” had grown to 125 million players in less than a year. And according to SuperData Research, “Fortnite” has raked in more than $1 billion in revenue.

Hebi’s own success has come at a price.

Delacroix started Hebi out of his apartment in early 2013 with his best friend and business partner Benjamin Thompson. Later that year, Thompson was killed by a drunken driver, forcing Delacroix to teach himself programming so he could continue Hebi in his friend’s memory.

Delacroix also spent all his savings and retirement to fund Hebi. At one point, he worked three jobs, including a gig as a mixed martial arts fighter in Austin that cost him two teeth and dislocated his shoulder.

“People say they put their blood, sweat and tears into their company,” he said. “I have actually put my blood, sweat and tears into Hebi.”

Which is why, like many indie developers, San Antonio game makers get by with a little help from their friends.

Hebi, No Hope and SAY Sí recently joined other San Antonio game companies to promote their work at the San Japan anime convention over Labor Day weekend. And Delacroix, also a co-founder of the International Game Developers Association’s San Antonio chapter, is organizing a similar contingent of local game makers for next month’s Alamo City Comic Con at the Alamodome.

“Even though we’re all self-funded, we all stick together,” Delacroix said.

San Antonio game makers can also network through the Greater Gaming Society of San Antonio, a social group of developers and gamers with more than 800 Facebook members. And Delacroix said the International Game Developers Association guides studios of all sizes on health insurance and how to break into new conventions and markets.

As for advice to would-be game makers, Delacroix drops the kind of maxims you’d find in any self-help book. Surround yourself with positive people. Expect to sacrifice time and money. Never give up.

It can pay off. Delacroix still runs Hebi Studios from his apartment, only now he said it’s profitable, with a team of about a dozen contractors. And he worries less about equipment costs these day thanks to partnerships with AT&T for tablets and smartphones, and Facebook for Oculus virtual reality headsets.

Ryan Tabatabai and the No Hope Studios crew hope to have “Quandary” up on Steam, a digital distribution platform, by the end of the year for early-access testing, so players can try out an incomplete version of the horror game and provide feedback.

Then who knows? Perhaps No Hope will scare up serious investment capital, or at least open doors to that next great game idea or gig.

“We hope to turn this into a career,” Tabatabai said. “You can’t just go hungry for your art.”

René A. Guzman is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | | Twitter: @reneguz